. . . to Catch a Monkey

Via Robert Farley it seems that S.S. Bajwa, Deputy Mayor of Delhi, has died as a result of injuries incurred during a monkey attack. It seems that "The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by." They do, however, have a potential solution: One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques."

Photo by Flickr user 13bobby used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Posted by AJ | October 22, 2007 9:56 AM

ah ... so send george allen after macaca?

Posted by macaca | October 22, 2007 9:58 AM

So Dick Cheney is now in charge of monkey policy in India?

Posted by Dave | October 22, 2007 10:01 AM

About thirty year ago when I visited India after having settled here, a relative remarked that all the Indian monkeys had been exported to the US.

It appears that due to the tremendous economy as a result of the outsourcing and the globalization, the monkeys have gone back.

Posted by gregor | October 22, 2007 10:05 AM

"What could possibly go wrong with that?"

AJ wins.

Posted by Petey | October 22, 2007 10:07 AM

The non-traditionally masculine primates, as usual, are rooting for a bloodbath.

Posted by SoCalJustice | October 22, 2007 10:32 AM

It's perfect. They have it sceduled so they work their way up to tigers in 19 years. Since the Tigers will be extinct in 20 years, the problem goes away!

Posted by Njorl | October 22, 2007 10:38 AM

Don't worry, everyone, when wintertime rolls around, the langur monkeys simply freeze to death.

Posted by Sam | October 22, 2007 10:40 AM

"The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes..."

Can we get them some visas?

Posted by GreenVTster | October 22, 2007 10:44 AM

Sure these monkey's are bastards, but they're our bastards.

Posted by DanF | October 22, 2007 10:55 AM

Simpsons did it.

Posted by sean | October 22, 2007 11:19 AM

I swallowed a spider to catch the fly...

Posted by rob | October 22, 2007 11:20 AM

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're
overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese
needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous
type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around,
the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Posted by sean | October 22, 2007 11:21 AM

how about locking up the food?

Posted by steven rumbalski | October 22, 2007 11:32 AM

Get flying monkeys involved, somehow. That'd be so BOSS!

Posted by ferd | October 22, 2007 11:50 AM

Using langurs is a waste of time. One of India's premiere experts on monkeys gave an interview on Discovery Canada about the issue and pointed out several problems:

1. Langurs live with rhesus in the wild, so there's no instinctual avoidance like, say, hawks and pigeons. Any avoidance that happens is merely due to a larger animal.

2. The langurs are on leashes, and the rhesus have already learned that there's a maximum distance they have to move to avoid the larger animal.

3. Animals can learn to ignore things if they prove to not be a threat. Langurs are a new thing to the city monkeys, but are rapidly becoming a not-new (therefore ignorable) thing.

Posted by Keith | October 22, 2007 12:03 PM

More monkey-blogging, please!

(And no, comments by Richard Steven Hack don't count.)

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 22, 2007 12:08 PM

Article says that the guy was a member of the BJP, so it seems that the monkeys are on the right side.

Posted by goethean | October 22, 2007 12:18 PM

Despite the objections mentioned by Keith I have to point out that this is NOT as crazy as the BBC article makes it sound. Since I live in Delhi, I know from experience that Langurs are NOT more ferocious when it comes to their contact with humans. In fact they seem to avoid any close contact with humans at all, whereas macaques will get close to people to steal their food and will get highly aggresive at the sign of any human resistance (I myself have been attacked by one).

Posted by Esben | October 22, 2007 12:37 PM

Send Hillary there and have her cry out "Fly! Fly!"
http://peenn.com/cblog/index.php?/archives/350-Hillary-Clinton-in-New-Harry-Potter-Movie.html

Or maybe " "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" :
http://www.lies.com/blog/archives/bush_barney.jpg

Posted by Don Williams | October 22, 2007 1:07 PM

I was going to ask how this could really be a problem until I read the article.

Culling them is unacceptable, but feeding them peanuts and bananas is common. In much the way that we deserve our politicians those Indians deserve their monkeys...

Posted by mpowell | October 22, 2007 2:14 PM

You've obviously been fooled by some parody site. "BBC News"? Sounds made up to me.

Posted by ibid | October 22, 2007 2:29 PM

Ha. Straight out of saturday night live into real life.

Anyone remember the batcave skit? They kept running campaign commercials where two politicians are proposing solutions to the local bat problem. One accused the other of being soft on bats, then the other guy said he would blow up the bat cave. Then the first guy wanted to bring in "larger more aggressive bats" to drive the bats away. Then the other wanted to use "soldier monkeys."

Posted by Doug | October 22, 2007 2:57 PM

In Jamaica, the same was done.To combat rats, british imported mongooses from ...India.Now snakes ,lizard were alsmost extingued.They also atacked dogs and cats

Posted by Jules | October 22, 2007 6:18 PM

Sounds like a job for Blackwater after the Iraqis suck it up and toss their asses out.

Posted by MAF54 | October 22, 2007 9:12 PM

Jules, Langurs are not being imported. They are naturally living here, so it's not quite the same as the Jamaican experience.

Posted by Esben | October 22, 2007 11:54 PM

Reminds me of Andrea Corr's remark while making a movie in Tibet about "monkeys who sneak into your room and steal your computer."

Now I know where Al, Ford, SLC, Juan, and the rest come from...

While in Vietnam in 1967, the medical unit whose company area was in front of mine had a monkey tied up on a leash outside. This little sucker was seriously MEAN. He would jump on guys heads, wrap his fists in their hair and then violently jump up and down. He ran up my leg once, then nipped the fold of skin over my shin between his teeth - not a bite, just a grab - but it hurt like hell.

Shoot the little bastards. And if you hit a few primates that walk on two legs, ah, well, collateral damage...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 23, 2007 1:04 AM

Always be prepared:

What should you do if you're surrounded by angry macaques?

Posted by Jason Malloy | October 23, 2007 7:58 AM

The fact that some macaques steal and attack humans harms the reputation of all macaques. We macaques are peaceful animals that mind our own business and see our reputation tarnished by a fanatical minority. We condemn the unfortunate death of the Deputy Mayor.

As a member of the macaque community I would like human commenters and bloggers to stop referring to macaques as a species without making a clear distinction between violent and peaceful macaques when these types of incidents arise.

One Macaque
Macaque International

Posted by One Macaque | October 23, 2007 9:09 AM